St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1887-03-10
FROZEN CATTLE.
How Thousands of Poor Beasts Die.

Correspondence Nei0 York Post.
Drifting before the storm comes a
bunch of cattle, per APPS 10 in number,
perhaps 500. Win heads held low
they move steadily along, strung out
after one another. Long means come
from the group, and sometimes the
sharper cry of an impatient calf. Long
streams of .steaming breath shoot from
their ice-laden muzzles down toward
the ground. On they go over the dim
gray plain. The little calves keep
close to their mothers side, butting at
them now and then in vain endeaveI
to induce them to stop so that they
may suck. Occasionally young weak
calf staggers, then falls and is unable
to rise, and its mother stops behind to
die with it. The rest keep on, parti-
cles of snow cling to their hair, the
wind cuts them, they cannot pause to
feed and the storm may continue for
week. They approach one of those
snow filled ravines. The leader walks
into the snow, pitches forward, and in
all instant disappears from sight. The
second follows, and the next, and the
next. If the bunch be small one, all
are engulfed in the soft, treacherous
snow if it be large, the cattle keep
falling in and walking over one anOth :
er, until at length a solid mass of dead
and dying animals makes a causeway
on which the last may cross to con-
tinue their weary way. In Wyoming's
mountains God does not "temper the
wind to the shOrn lamb" nor to the
wretched cattle. just SO, in the olden
time, the buffalo, driven by the Indi
ans, used to follow one another to
death when they jumped off the cliffs
into the "pOunds" below. l have seen
ravines where, in spring and summer,
the decaying carcasses and white bones
of hundreds of cattle lay piled up so
high that they half filled the gulch.
This is one way in which the cattle
die here. Sometimes, but very seldom,
a storm comes up without wind, and
damp snow falls to the depth of foot
or two. This, if followed by cold
weather, means absolute determination
to all the cattle in the area covered by
the storm. Cattle, as L have said be-
fore, will not 'rustle," will not hunt
about for food, will not dig through
the snow to get at the grass beneath,
If the feed is not before their eyes.
they just stand still and starve to
death. If we may believe the tradi-
tiOns of Indians and Old-time hunters,
it was such storm as this that exter-
minated the buffalo on the Laramie
plains, where once, to judge from the
bieached bones that still dot these
table lands they were abundant. 1t
was many years ago that this great
tragedy took place just how long is
not exactly certain, but authority fixes
the date as about I845. Old Jack Rob
inson, a venerable pioneer, now dead,
told me the story many years ago. He
said that in this terrible winter there
came on the Laramie plains ii heavy
fall of snow, without any wind, and
the prairie was covered to the depth of
four or five feet. During the next day
or two the weather was warm, and the
snow began to melt. Then followed ii
period of intense cold. A hard crust
formed, the buffalo could find nothing
to eat, and they all starved to death.
Since that time there has been none on
the Laramie plains, except now and
then a straggler.